Jacob Burns and the Order of the Algorithm #Wattys2017

Chapter 12: A Very Unexpected Guest

"You don't have to look... if you don't want to," he added as we both leaned in closer over the aging photographs, but nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see.

At first glance, I wasn't even sure what I was looking at... Whatever was left of poor Dr. Astor was completely unrecognizable. The man hadn't just been killed by a bullet or a blade... No. Somehow, the killer had managed to orchestrate a far, far worse fate for him than anything I could have ever imagined.

Like an unholy horror from beyond this plane, the man had been twisted into the most gruesome of ghouls. Radiation burns had scarred him beyond all recognition, the look of terror and agony on his face the thing of nightmares. Not only that, but fresh wounds and large pus-filled growths covered his entire being until he had bloated to almost double his size. As if it could get any worse, the man had suffered unspeakable mutations. Hideous deformed limbs twisted and tore through his raw flesh, as if hell itself was trying to claw its way into our world through the man's miserable and dying body.

A dark shiver raced down my spine as an ominous feeling settled in around me. There was something sick and disturbing about what I was looking at, as though this had all been for some kind of sick ritual sacrifice.

"So, do you see it yet? Do you see what's wrong with this picture?" Valentine asked as I looked at him incredulously.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?! A hell of a lot's wrong that's what! This is horrifying, why would you show us something like this?!"

"I would have thought a man like you would have paid closer attention, Jacob..." The synth chided with a laugh, but I only glared. "Look closer and think, what's missing?" He urged.

"I don't care much for games, synth... Why don't you just come out with it and say what you're trying to say?" I snarled with disdain.

"Well look around why don't you?" Valentine said with a smile, "You don't hear a Geiger counter ticking, now do you? We didn't either when we first came in. The whole thing didn't make sense. That these men weren't just murdered, they were mutated... without a trace of radiation."

"Wait, what?" I said as I recoiled in disbelief, "How is that even possible? No, no you must be mistaken. These pictures, they were taken after the bombs, they have to have been!"

"Check the timestamp, kid."

I turned over the photograph and saw in faded ink: OCT 23 2077 7:42 AM

"Seven forty-two..." I repeated, "but everyone knows that the bombs didn't drop until at least nine o'clock on the east coast."

"Who could do such a thing?" Ilya said as she trembled in her seat.

"The question may not be who, but what," the detective said as he picked up another photograph and handed it to me.

It must have been the murder weapon, a dark blade made of a twisted and deformed metal, just as disturbed as its final victim. Jagged and cruel, it seemed to grin in the light of the flashbulb, Dr. Astor's blood still fresh in its rusty maw.

"Wicked, isn't it?" He continued with a dark grimace, "Kremvh's Tooth they called it, stolen mere days before the first murder. Belonged to a museum that specialized in artifacts of the occult. We'd always known these murders had some ritualistic aspects to them, but until this blade, we had no idea how serious these people were."

"Wait a minute, what are you saying?" I asked, barely able to believe what I was about to suggest. "That this monster, this killer, was somehow mutating people into ungodly abominations using... what? Black magic?"

"Now I ain't saying that, kid. I'm just telling you the facts. We had no idea what was going on with these murders. All I know is that this blade was our first real clue, and just our luck, it's long gone from the police lockup. Stolen by some raider or scavenger by now, I'm sure."